


borne ceaselessly ashore

by sannlykke



Series: Sportsfest 2018 [5]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - The Great Gatsby Fusion, Angst, Infidelity, M/M, POV First Person, mayuaka is mostly implied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 03:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: "Heaven knows I’ve enough years on me to know at once there was something very wrong happening here, but I’ve never been one to divulge my opinion. The truth was not what Aomine wanted—not what Kise wanted, though that is what I’ve suspected for a long time coming. I took a large gulp of champagne and tried to forget."





	1. knife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ewagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/gifts).



> these are disjointed drabbles from a great gatsby au i did over the summer for sportsfest, which means **PLEASE READ THE TAGS.**
> 
> so, vaguely: aomine is gatsby, kise is daisy, haizaki is tom and... mayuzumi is nick. akashi is not jordan. does that make sense? no? that's fine it doesn't need to.

“Look at how the fountain captures the light,” Aomine said, all smiles. I gave him a half-grimace and nod, because it’s only fair, somehow. “Isn’t it, Mayuzumi?”  
  
“How splendid,” I said, hoping he’s dense enough to ignore the bite. Then I was completely and utterly ignored regardless as he ran towards Kise, hand outstretched, as the fountains sang higher with music that seemed to emanate from the very grass beneath. Tacky, but I did live on his coin. I didn’t say a thing to the gardeners and servants and what-have-you milling about. They probably had no idea I lived there anyhow, which was the way I liked it.  
  
I wasn’t sure why Aomine wanted me here. Maybe as decoration, as suited his needs, but who needs decoration that can talk?  
  
At least the butler had eyes sharp enough to pass me a drink. Heaven knows I’ve enough years on me to know at once there was something very wrong happening here, but I’ve never been one to divulge my opinion. The truth was not what Aomine wanted—not what Kise wanted, though that is what I’ve suspected for a long time coming. I took a large gulp of champagne and tried to forget.  
  
(If the water splashing over my head was any indication, residual salt stinging my eyes in a way that’s making me regret everything—I heard the shutter click and slow churn of film, and wondered how long it would be until I heard an angry shout come my way and push me into the deep for the last time.)  
  
I won’t pretend to know Kise as well as a good cousin should, mainly because I’ve never cared to. And so it was strange then, watching him, watching Aomine in his silken bespoke suit splash around in the shallows where the Hudson lapped the beach so slowly it could be molasses. Two ill-mannered young friends dallying about on a lazy Sunday. Their smiles made me blanch; I knew a little about lost years, but when I looked at them my mind ceased all activity.  
  
It’s as if I’m being told  _something_ , but it’s something I couldn’t figure out—until it was too late.  
  
I remember wondering too when I saw them from the balcony as the colors whirled in and out of my vision—words that I couldn’t pronounce slipping like fish through smooth waters out of Aomine’s mouth. When had he known how to say those words? And then I remember the day he took me to meet Akashi, and shuddered.  
  
(—There’s the devil you don’t see and the devil you can’t look away from, and I’m not sure which one I’d locked gazes with, back then.)  
  
Kise with his golden, glittering eyes seems to take the world in some kind of wonder, his gaze following Aomine as they rounded the hall together—Aomine with each lazy wave flinging out gold and silver and every color of the rainbow as they descended upon Kise’s fair head. I was getting dizzy just looking at them, though the wine could not have helped any. Kise had been laughing, I’m sure, at least until he started crying.  
  
I couldn’t look away.  
  
I couldn’t look, but Aomine could, and I saw him stoop down and curl his fingers around Kise’s cheeks in a way that certainly gave no indication that Kise belonged to another. In that moment he was wholly intent upon gazing at Kise, and Kise at him, and though I could not see either of their faces I knew it was time to go.  
  
Aomine was the sun, burning furious and bright and yet, as I watched from the shadows, there was a sadness about the two of them that I could not let go of even as I exited from the balcony. What it was I could not tell you even now, years after the fact, but it was in that moment I made up my mind to wash my hands of the affair.  
  
That I did not follow through remains a regret.


	2. knife ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please read the tags thank you

“I think I should leave,“ I said, as insistently as I could. We were sitting alone in the large dark office with crystal chandeliers dangling so high above my head I was wholly convinced there were traps involved that would drop them on my head were I to make a wrong move, such as now. “Good day.”  
  
Even though the doors were ostensibly soundproofed I could still feel low vibrations from the band playing beneath my feet, a heavy concrete floor below this one. Aomine was waiting for me outside, anxious no doubt as to why I was called in here alone, but he needn’t worry, really. He’s got enough troubles on his own plate for me to tilt mine into his.  
  
I wasn’t a fantastic guest, all things considered, but at least I wasn’t in the business of exposing his business to New York’s elite. That was something he could very well do for himself.  
  
Akashi smiles at me with a catlike tilt of his head.  _Any time now,_  I thought—I would be six feet under and that would be entirely my fault, with my pride preventing me from ever saying so out loud. “Good day, Chihiro.”  
  


* * *

  
I don’t know what I expected but it was not, perhaps, the very sort of merriment they were already making back at the mansion. Guests were arriving at a pace exceeding that which I wanted to be dealing with, and I quickly hightailed it into the second-floor alcoves the moment I was let out of the sedan. It was a sort of extravagance I thought I’d never get over being appalled by, except it seemed to get worse every extra second I stayed. Of course it would be just so that I realized why the moment I saw a familiar car pull up outside.  
  
For once I would’ve liked the privacy and joy of not being witness to the trouble about to unfold, but the heavens had seen that that would never come to pass.  
  
I watched Kise exit the limousine, dressed to the nines but with a pinched look about his face; Haizaki climbs out from behind him, frowning at the expansive grounds and dancing fountains. They walked in, hand in hand, and then not anymore.  
  
Aomine took them around, introducing them to other attendees here and there: people I recognized vaguely and more that I didn’t care to. It did not occur to me that I was supposed to be down there until he looked up and waved at me; I could only sigh and oblige.  
  
Fine, it was fine—the way Haizaki greeted me warily, the way Kise chirped at my presence but looked straight ahead, eyes distant, no matter who was talking to him. The way Aomine flitted in and out of the scene as if distracted, painfully intent on pulling off the best show he could muster. And it  _was_  a show, was it not?  
  
I watched people splash into the pool, wetting silk stockings and more. Finally Haizaki drifted off (outside, to smoke, probably) and I was left alone with Kise, who felt no less distant but could suddenly speak, as it were.  
  
“Is it like this every time?” he asked me. I needn’t turn my head to know he was talking about the drunken hoots and excessive champagne, but it was more than that. “I don’t know anyone here. Except you, and Aominecchi.“  
  
 _I trust you will keep careful watch over them,_  I could hear Akashi whispering into my ear, although the impression I’d received from that statement had been quite the opposite.   
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied.  
  
“The celebrities,“ Kise said, though it’s evident he’s not listening to me. “It’s quite dazzling. Don’t you think so?”  
  
 _You’re trying to convince yourself,_  I wanted to tell him, but did not. It was good that Aomine appeared in that instant to whisk him away, down to the dance floor where another jazz number was starting. I didn’t know Aomine could dance.  
  
They looked very beautiful basked in that golden glow, if only for a moment.  
  


* * *

  
I sat next to them outside as someone fetched their car, itching for a smoke myself as I watched Haizaki pull out another cigar.  _That_  was one who never knew the limits of his vice, though, ironically, he was not the only one.  
  
“What the fuck does that Aomine do?” he asked me, almost accusingly. “With all this—all this—”  
  
“Champagne?“ I said, looking at the ground. “People you don’t know? If you hate them, you shouldn’t have come.”  
  
“I don’t,” Haizaki declared, and I rolled my eyes. “They don’t matter, anyhow. Not to me.”  
  
“You always say that,“ Kise replied, prodding him a little. “They’re fine. Even if they aren’t—”  
  
“You didn’t even talk to them.“  
  
“At least I talked.”  
  
I didn’t want to hear them start bickering, and so stood up as soon as I saw headlights. “It’s here. Your car.“  
  
Haizaki stared at me oddly before shrugging and indicating towards the limo. “I’d sure like to know what the fuck’s up with this place someday.”  
  
“Well, you’re asking the wrong person,” I told him shortly as I watched them get in. Kise nodded at me, smiling—or trying to, I couldn’t tell. He was looking at something behind me, but when I turned around I saw nothing. I watched the car roll away, down the street, disappear behind a dark corner. Back to East Egg where they, for all intents and purposes, belong.  
  
The music was still playing when I went back inside, my head ringing. If I were to glance up, I’m sure, I would’ve seen a shadow of a man standing there, champagne in hand, watching the merrymaking below him with nothing but longing in his eyes.  
  
It was a look I never would wish to see upon myself.


End file.
